


Leaving Tomorrow

by LogicalParafox



Series: Raven's Flight [2]
Category: RWBY
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-23
Updated: 2020-11-23
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:01:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,682
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27681131
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LogicalParafox/pseuds/LogicalParafox
Summary: After the confrontation with Yang, Raven flees along the last bond she has that will get her somewhere far away.
Relationships: Raven Branwen/Summer Rose/Taiyang Xiao Long
Series: Raven's Flight [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2024197
Kudos: 11





	Leaving Tomorrow

Raven would leave Patch tomorrow.

Silence had become the norm between herself and Tai since he followed her to Summer’s grave after she ran from their daughter. He’d had some hard words for her, but he’d carried her back home when she found herself too exhausted and wrecked to stand.

It had been far too easy to let him clean her up and tend to her wounds and tuck her into his bed. The pillows and sheets smelled like him and Raven couldn’t bring herself to object. She buried her face in his pillow and slept like the dead for almost a full day.

She woke to find him asleep in the old rocking chair, doing a poor job at playing nursemaid or guardian or guard. Tai had always been too soft. He didn’t stir as she eased out of bed and limped into the bathroom.

Raven stood over him as he snored softly half an hour later, frowning slightly as she looked at his face, then looked out the window at the bright sunlight, the once-familiar treeline.

This had been home and safety, once, before she had fled from anything and everything to do with feeling safe. Raven could cut his throat right now as he snored.

She turned and looked through his closet, her lip curling in derision at his abominable taste in clothing. Even though her clothes were filthy, better them than a bright orange shirt or anything khaki.

Her clothes were also missing and the mud had been cleaned off of her boots. Meddlesome Taiyang and his compulsive nesting. 

With a grimace she padded out into the hallway, a towel still wrapped around herself to raid Qrow’s room. His wardrobe at least had acceptable colors. She pulled her hair back, scowling at the way her shoulders ached and gazed out the window.

* * *

“Raven?!” Tai’s panicked voice snapped her out of her reverie. With a start she realized the scenery outside of Qrow’s window had changed. Sunset had come while she stared unseeing.

“Here,” she said calmly and Tai skidded into the doorway, staring at her as he relaxed, letting out his breath in a long sigh. “How are you feeling? Are you hungry?”

“I should go,” Raven said dully.

“At least eat something while your clothes are in the dryer.”

“You’d let me near a stove?”

“…Well you could sit at the kitchen table while I make some food.”

“…Fine.”

* * *

Raven lost time again as she sat at the table, thinking about what she would do next. Vernal dead. The Fall maiden’s power loose in the world once more and her most dangerous secret in the hands of no one save her daughter. Well, her brother probably knew now too. She needed a plan. She needed to regroup.

“Raven?”

She jerked, groping for a blade she didn’t have on her currently. Inattention meant death.

Tai held up his hands, rocking back on his heels. “If you’re going to startle like that you should focus more on connecting with the here and now, Raven. Speaking of which…” He gestured and Raven realized she smelled food and he’d managed to set a plate in front of her. And utensils. She was going to get herself killed if she kept losing herself like this.

“I’m just tired,” she said brusquely.

“Fine fine,” he said soothingly, serving himself a plate and sitting across from her, starting to eat.

Raven stared at him for a long moment, then looked down at her plate again. Damn Tai, he’d made her favorite recipe of Summer’s, pan fried noodles with fresh vegetables. Raven’s stomach growled loudly enough that Tai jumped, then chuckled.

“It’ll do you more good if you eat it,” he teased.

Raven rolled her eyes and kicked him under the table before tucking in.

Raven managed not to moan, but it was a near thing. No one in the tribe had cooked like this. The struggle to keep from eating so fast she choked possibly outranked how difficult defeating the fall maiden had been.

She sat back at last, uncomfortably full, her eyelids beginning to droop. “I need to leave.”

“You need to sleep,” Tai pointed out. “How far are you going to get when you just ate enough that you definitely won’t be able to fly?”

Raven glared at him… but he wasn’t wrong.

Her body ached when she got to her feet. She’d sat still for far too long. Raven paused at the foot of the stairs, trying to muster the willpower to start to climb.

Raven almost punched Tai in the throat when he just scooped her up like they were still married. “You…!”

“What, you’d rather pass out at the foot of the stairs because you just got put through the wringer and every inch of you is bruised?”

Raven grumbled, but he was so warm… Later she didn’t remember him tucking her in.

* * *

Tai was sleeping in the rocking chair again when she awoke. Not as long of a sleep this time since it was actually dark out.

Raven didn’t have much to say to him and he let her have her quiet, though if she lost time she often came out of it to find him watching her worriedly.

He fed her and kept watch while she slept, though whether he was meant to be a guard to keep her safe or to keep her from escaping Raven couldn’t have said. Either way he did a terrible job since she managed to get up and leave the room without him waking up.

Raven climbed back into the warm spot in the bed, considering. His head was tilted at a bad angle and he would likely wake up with a bad crick in his neck. She sighed, getting back up and grabbing the high back of the chair, rocking it backward with a jerk.

Tai startled awake with a gasp, flailing at the air. He looked up at her with his blue eyes and pouted.

“It’s your fault for sleeping like a log,” she told him tartly.

“Just trying to make sure you don’t die or something,” he muttered.

Raven raised an eyebrow.

Tai sighed, rubbing the back of his neck and avoiding meeting her eyes.

Raven rolled her eyes and yanked the rocking chair back again, suppressing a smirk when he flailed in automatic panic. “Spit it out.”

“…You had a nightmare that first night when I was trying to sleep in Qrow’s room,” he muttered, still not looking at her.

Raven froze. “…How do you know it was a nightmare?”

Tai sighed. “You were screaming about Salem and maidens…”

Raven winced. This was why she drank to fall asleep in her tent. She had too many secrets for someone haunted by bad dreams.

“And you said ‘I’m sorry, Yang’”

Raven flinched, letting go of the rocking chair and turning away. “…And that didn’t make you curious?”

Tai sighed, the chair creaking as he moved but she kept her back to him. “You’ll tell me when you tell me. Or most likely you won’t. I keep waiting for the day I wake up and you’re just gone. Again.”

“I’ll probably leave tomorrow,” she said to the wall.

“Yeah,” Tai said heavily.

“…I might as well get a good night’s sleep before I hit the road.”

“So… lie back down then,” he said.

“…You can join me, it’s your bed after all.”

Silence.

“…I never had nightmares when you were in my bed.”

“Are you sure?” he asked softly. “I’m fine in the chair, it seems to be enough…”

“Just lie down, Tai.”

Tai hesitated for long moments, but she could hear him moving to the closet, and the rustle of changing clothes.

Raven stayed where she was until she heard the bed creak slightly. She turned and he was under the blankets, holding them open for her.

She froze for an infinite moment, even knowing she had just invited him to do this, the intimacy of it…. Her heart began to pound.

Raven forced herself to close the distance, to climb into bed beside the man she had married.

Tai kept his hands to himself, lying on his back with his hands atop the blanket, folded on his chest as he closed his eyes.

Raven could feel the heat radiating off of him as she watched the side of his face, her stomach doing backflips. She who could face Salem’s monsters with impunity panicking in the face of sleeping beside her once-husband after inviting him to lie down. Where had her bravery gone?

She lay on her back as well, staring up at the ceiling.

* * *

Raven woke to daylight and knew she had stayed too long. She had to leave tomorrow. She would leave tomorrow. Already her body was healing. She still had no plan for a next step but she could make it up on the fly.

Tai cooked her more of her favorite meals throughout the day and managed to keep his mouth shut, though he wore his awful khaki cargos and a bright yellow shirt that she resolved to burn at the soonest opportunity for the crime of hurting her eyes and being unspeakably ugly.

* * *

Raven woke the next morning cuddled against his side. She needed to leave tomorrow when more of her strength had returned. She would make a plan today and leave tomorrow.

* * *

Days stretched into weeks and still no plan. Still sharing a bed. Still eating homecooked food and regaining her strength.

Tai offered a massage and managed to smooth out a painful knot in her shoulder of a long-ago pulled muscle she hadn’t dared let anyone try and help her with in the tribe, unwilling to show that much weakness.

Tai went out to restock on supplies and brought back her favorite tea blend from the shop on Patch. They had tea together in the yard as the fresh breeze stirred Raven’s hair and she didn’t know what she was doing here.

Tai smiled when she looked at him and didn’t ask her what had happened.

Tomorrow. She would leave tomorrow.


End file.
